Entities such as consumers, organizations, enterprises, governments, health care entities, etc. need to exchange data for a variety of reasons, as may be easily imagined. In the modern world, this data exchange is often times accomplished electronically using a variety of methodologies. These methodologies include, for example, local storage (e.g., a thumb driver holding the data which can be physically delivered to a recipient), file transfer using particular protocols (e.g., file transfer protocol (FTP)), sending an e-mail with an attachment, fax, etc.
While all these methods serve the same end, each of these methodologies has differing capabilities with respect to various characteristics such as ease of use, speed, security (e.g., the ability to resist interception or tampering), traceability, cost, etc. For example, using local storage may not feasible if two entities are widely dispersed geographically.
Accordingly, traditional fax machines have been successfully relied upon to transmit electronic documents over the public switched telephone network (PSTN) for some time. A facsimile (fax) comprises a document in a digital image format. The document is associated with a destination specified with respect to the PSTN. Thus, typically for at least a portion of the transmission, the document is transmitted over the PSTN. Faxing provides a secure, traceable and non-repudiable mechanism for content delivery and can be particularly useful in certain environments.
In a typical office environment equipped with a private packet-switched data network and access to a public packet-switched data network such as the Internet, a server is connected to the PSTN. The server is also connected to the private packet-switched data network and, typically, the Internet. From the perspective of the server, the PSTN is both a source of incoming faxes as well as a destination of outgoing faxes. “Online” fax services which make use of e-mail to communicate between a user with an e-mail account and a traditional fax machine may also be available.
Thus, in many cases, the network over which a document is transmitted may not be homogeneous. Specifically, the network over which a document is transmitted to the specified destination on the PSTN may be comprised of many different types of sub-networks (including computer networks or telephone networks (e.g., including cellular networks)). The variable nature of the networks over which a fax may be transmitted may introduce latency or other issues into the transmission of a fax. While some fax systems may utilize other methods to transmit the fax in case of problematic transmissions, there is no coherent way to selectively utilize certain protocols or aspects of those protocols in the transmission of faxes, or to easily manage the use of those protocols or aspects.
Generally, then it would be desirable to be able to selectively utilize certain protocols or aspects of a protocol in association with individual fax transmissions, both when transmitting or receiving faxes.